Ellsworth was eleven years old when his mother died. Aunt Adeline, his father's maiden sister, came to live with them and run the Toohey household. Aunt Adeline was a tall, capable woman to whom the word "horse" clung in conjunction with the words "sense" and "face." The secret sorrow of her life was that she had never inspired romance. Helen became her immediate favorite. She considered Ellsworth an imp out of hell. But Ellsworth never wavered in his manner of grave courtesy toward Aunt Adeline. He leaped to pick up her handkerchief, to move her chair, when they had company, particularly masculine company. He sent her beautiful Valentines on the appropriate day — with paper lace, rosebuds and love poems. He sang "Sweet Adeline" at the top of his town crier's voice. "You're a maggot, Elsie," she told him once. "You feed on sores."
"Then I'll never starve," he answered. After a while they reached a state of armed neutrality. Ellsworth was left to grow up as he pleased.
In high school Ellsworth became a local celebrity — the star orator. For years the school did not refer to a promising boy as a good speaker, but as "a Toohey." He won every contest. Afterward, members of the audience spoke about "that beautiful boy"; they did not remember the sorry little figure with the sunken chest, inadequate legs and glasses; they remembered the voice. He won every debate. He could prove anything. Once, after beating Willie Lovett with the affirmative of "The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword," he challenged Willie to reverse their positions, took the negative and won again.,
Until the age of sixteen Ellsworth felt himself drawn to the career of a minister. He thought a great deal about religion. He talked about God and the spirit. He read extensively on the subject. He read more books on the history of the church than on the substance of faith. He brought his audience to tears in one of his greatest oratorical triumphs with the theme of "The meek shall inherit the earth."
At this period he began to acquire friends. He liked to speak of faith and he found those who liked to listen. Only, he discovered that the bright, the strong, the able boys of his class felt no need of listening, felt no need of him at all. But the suffering and ill-endowed came to him. Drippy Munn began to follow him about with the silent devotion of a dog. Billy Wilson lost his mother, and came wandering to the Toohey house in the evenings, to sit with Ellsworth on the porch, listening, shivering once in a while, saying nothing, his eyes wide, dry and pleading. Skinny Dix got infantile paralysis — and would lie in bed, watching the street corner beyond the window, waiting for Ellsworth. Rusty Hazelton failed to pass in his grades, and sat for many hours, crying, with Ellsworth's cold, steady hand on his shoulder. It was never clear whether they all discovered Ellsworth or Ellsworth discovered them. It seemed to work more like a law of nature: as nature allows no vacuum, so pain and Ellsworth Toohey drew each other. His rich, beautiful voice said to them: "It's good to suffer. Don't complain. Bear, bow, accept — and be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy. If you don't understand this, don't try to understand. Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand. So if you didn't get passing grades, be glad of it. It means that you are better than the smart boys who think too much and too easily."
People said it was touching, the way Ellsworth's friends clung to him. After they had taken him for a while, they could not do without him. It was like a drug habit.
Ellsworth was fifteen, when he astonished the Bible-class teacher by an odd question. The teacher had been elaborating upon the text: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Ellsworth asked: "Then in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?" The teacher was about to ask him what the hell did he mean, but controlled himself and asked what did he mean. Ellsworth would not elucidate.
At the age of sixteen, Ellsworth lost interest in religion. He discovered socialism. His transition shocked Aunt Adeline. "In the first place, it is blasphemous and drivel," she said. "In the second place, it doesn't make sense. I'm surprised at you, Elsie. 'The poor in spirit' — that was fine, but just 'the poor' — that doesn't sound respectable at all. Besides it's not like you. You're not cut out to make big trouble — only little trouble. Something's crazy somewhere, Elsie. It just don't fit. It's not like you at all."
"In the first place, my dear aunt," he answered, "don't call me Elsie. In the second place, you're wrong."
The change seemed good for Ellsworth. He did not become an aggressive zealot. He became gentler, quieter, milder. He became more attentively considerate of people. It was as if something had taken the nervous edges off his personality and given him new confidence. Those around him began to like him. Aunt Adeline stopped worrying. Nothing actual seemed to come of his preoccupation with revolutionary theories. He joined no political party. He read a great deal and he attended a few dubious meetings, where he spoke once or twice, not too well, but mostly sat in a corner, listening, watching, thinking.
Ellsworth went to Harvard. His mother had willed her life insurance for that specific purpose. At Harvard his scholastic record was superlative. He majored in history. Aunt Adeline had expected to see him go in for economics and sociology; she half feared that he would end up as a social worker. He didn't. He became absorbed in literature and the fine arts. It baffled her a little; it was a new trait in him; he had never shown any particular tendency in that direction. "You're not the arty kind, Elsie," she stated. "It don't fit."
"You're wrong, auntie," he said.
Ellsworth's relations with his fellow students were the most unusual of his achievements at Harvard. He made himself accepted. Among the proud young descendants of proud old names, he did not hide the fact of his humble background; he exaggerated it. He did not tell them that his father was the manager of a shoe store; "he said that his father was a shoe cobbler. He said it without defiance, bitterness or proletarian arrogance; he said it as if it were a joke on him and — if one looked closely into his smile — on them. He acted like a snob; not a flagrant snob, but a natural, innocent one who tries very hard not to be snobbish. He was polite, not in the manner of one seeking favor, but in the manner of one granting it. His attitude was contagious. People did not question the reasons of his superiority; they took it for granted that such reasons existed. It became amusing, at first, to accept "Monk" Toohey; then it became distinctive and progressive. If this was a victory Ellsworth did not seem conscious of it as such; he did not seem to care. He moved among all these unformed youths, with the assurance of a man who has a plan, a long-range plan set in every detail, and who can spare nothing but amusement for the small incidentals on his way. His smile had a secret, closed quality, the smile of a shopkeeper counting profits — even though nothing in particular seemed to be happening.
He did not talk about God and the nobility of suffering. He talked about the masses. He proved to a rapt audience, at bull sessions lasting till dawn, that religion bred selfishness; because, he stated, religion overemphasized the importance of the individual spirit; religion preached nothing but a single concern — the salvation of one's own soul.